The name recognition, the diversity, the location, or the weather - Why Stanford

Help please! I think that maybe it's too cliché, but it's the truth. Should I mention here what I could bring to Stanford, or in another essay? If in another one, which one?

Please me completly honest, blunt even, I really want to improve!!

Thank you!!

Tell us what makes Stanford a good place for you.

Stanford is the school I want to go to, it's the only one that makes me feel as if I could belong, which really matters to me as I haven't felt like I belong for so long, it is where I see myself in one year, when I close my eyes and imagine myself in other schools it just doesn't fit.

When I first started looking at Stanford, I spent a lot of time in the website and fell in love with everything, the gorgeous campus, the beautiful environment, the atmosphere I sense when I read about it in your website and in others.

What made me want to go there is not the name recognition, the diversity, the location, or the weather. The fact that it has the best Psychology Program in the States and the knowledge that it will provide me with a great education helped, but what made me choose Stanford was the spirit I have read so much about. I know that if I am given the chance of going to Stanford that I will have a great experience, that the best four years of my life will be the ones I spend there.

It makes me smile when I read about the relax atmosphere, and the reference to ducks. I do not want to spend those four years in my room studying, I want to spend a part of them doing that, but another one out in the campus, doing crazy things I will remember fondly when I am old, I want to join the Leland Stanford Junior Marching Band, not to play the piano or any other instrument, but to be 'raucous and wild, colorful and a little bit crazy', like they are described, I will look forward to being a part of the Full Moon on the Quad if I am given the opportunity, I have never had someone to do crazy things with or even the opportunity of doing them, and maybe that is the reason I wholly adore the Assassins and Wacky Walk; those traditions make me yearn for Stanford, and I hope I am given the opportunity of looking forward to and being a part of them.

Stanford is the school I want to go to Stanford is the school to which I would like to attend, . i It's the only one that makes me feel as if I could should belong, which really matters to me as I haven't felt like I belong for so long, . it It is where I see myself in one year, . when I close my eyes and imagine myself in other schools it just doesn't fit.

There is a run-on sentence. I had to break it down. Also, the first sentence, now sounds a little better. You can do better -- brush it up a little.

Mark

I see specifics only in the final paragraph. I'm not sure that's a good thing. Take your first 3 paragraphs, and substitute "Harvard" or "Yale" for every "Stanford" you see. If it works, it's not good. That's what a UChicago adcom told me, and I'm sure that would apply everywhere else.

Try this instead:

Stanford is the school to which I would like to attend. It's the only one that makes me feel as if I should belong; that really matters to me as I haven't felt as if I should belong for some time. Stanford is where I see myself in one year from now. When I close my eyes and imagine myself in other schools, they just don't fit me.

Your entire two paragraphs contain "run-on sentences." You need to create or develop shorter sentences by using periods or semi-colons.

Mark

I really like this approach, and I think the reader will appreciate getting an essay about something more meaningful than those overused topics.

But in this paragraph you should make sure you DO say something specific enough.All that stuff I crossed out, above, is general stuff. I want it to be replaced with a discussion of which schools of thought in psych interest you most... who are your heroes? Fairbairn and Winnicot? Victor Frankl? Milton Erickson? Freud? Jung? Maslow? Ellis?

Read about the most recent innovations in your aspect of the field, and tell them about your research interests... and which professors you look forward to learning from.

Keep in mind that you don't go to a university for its "spirit". If you say that, admission officers will get the false premise that you are a "party person". You go their for its academics, as clinché as it sounds, it's true. That said, you can rephrase your essay to include "spirit for higher learning". That might be an interesting topic to focus on. Good luck.